DISQUS

VentureBeat: Mint.com data: Economy may be bouncing back

  • matt @ Thrive · 4 months ago
    Also, remember that Mint does not actually have 1 million users providing this data, as that number includes only users that given them their email...not necessarily linked accounts, which is what would provide this info. See http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/01/30/the-econom... for a long discussion of the fundamental scientific errors that Mint makes in the way they treat this data.
  • Anthony Ha · 4 months ago
    Interesting, I wasn't aware of that.
  • Jay Cuthrell · 4 months ago
    In business, focus on top line revenue and hide debt... in personal finance, Mint only the happy accounts :)
  • engagoteam · 4 months ago
    The demographics of people using Mint is not representative for the whole population.
    Mint users have Internet access, are Internet savvy and need to follow-up on their spending.
    And they spend $12,000 a quarter = net income of $48,000 a year (way above the average income)
    - A large part of the US population hasn't even got Internet access and have never heard of Mint.
    - The richer don't use Mint to follow-up on their spending.

    Thus the conclusion can be: a certain social class could be spending a little more than previously.
  • Anthony Ha · 4 months ago
    Agreed, which is more-or-less what I was trying to say in my paragraph full of caveats.
  • Chris · 4 months ago
    Remember just before the crash how good the fundamentals of the economy were? They were a lot better than these figures.

    From historic comparisons going back a few hundred years from what I've seen the probability lies in favor of a further lows.